Tough market: Century 21 real estate agency being liquidated

The liquidator of a Canterbury Century 21 real estate agency office says an ongoing lack of house sales has made work in the sector increasingly difficult.

Brenton Hunt of Insolvency Matters said the housing downturn did not make operating easy.

He is liquidating Aurora Commercial NZ which the Companies Office said traded as Century 21 Aurora Real Estate. That business operated from Blenheim Rd, Riccarton in Christchurch.

“The easy sales are not there any more. It’s a lot harder to get sales over the line,” Hunt said.

The agency traded from this address in Christchurch. Photo / Google Street View

Companies Office records show Ria Leung is the sole director and shareholder of the business but Hunt said he has yet to quantify the scale of debts or assets.

Hunt said Leung was not only selling property but also selling businesses, especially to the Chinese community.

“She had staff in the past but not recently,” he said.

Century 21′s head office had terminated arrangements with her for non-payment of fees, Hunt said. That had occurred in the last two months and since then the agency had not operated.

Inquiries to Century 21 about the liquidation resulted in a director Tim Kearins saying he “would rather not comment”.

However another executive stressed that each Century 21 office was independently owned and operated.

Century 21 says the New Zealand-owned arm of the worldwide network was established in 1992 and later purchased by current chairman and owner Charles Tarbey in February 2012.

Real Estate Authority records show Leung has Auroa Commercial NZ of Christchurch and Global Realty Investment of Kaikōura. Global Realty is a residential sales, commercial letting and leasing, rural sales and business broking company, according to the REA portal.

Leung has no disciplinary history, the authority’s site shows. She has been approached for comment.

The Century 21 agency failure is not the first lately.

Earlier this year, two companies that operated a real estate sales and property management agency under the Harcourts banner were put into liquidation, with the owner forming a new business to carry on and saying nothing had changed.

Pinnacle Real Estate and Pinnacle Real Estate Rentals, trading as Harcourts Pinnacle, are both in liquidation.

They are owned by Rasheed Muhammed and traded from the agency’s offices on Pavilion Dr, Māngere.

Mohammad Jan of Liquidation Management told the Herald that Harcourts Pinnacle continued to operate but under a new company formed last September called Pinnacle Realty.

All the activities of the previous two companies were now being performed by that new company so business was proceeding as normal, he stressed.

In a second case reported in April, shareholders in an Auckland real estate agency declared insolvency, blaming “a big downturn” in house sales, high staff costs and debt for the firm’s failure estimated to be more than $700,000.

Boris van Delden and Iain McLennan of McDonald Vague liquidated Client First Realty, owned by Tarragon [known as Dylan] Mann, Brook Mann and Ben Wickins.

That agency had a connection with Harcourts and appeared under Companies Office records as trading as Harcourts Client First.

Sole director Dylan Mann told the accountants what led to the liquidation.

“The director has attributed the failure of the company to a big downturn in the real estate industry. He said that high staff costs and outgoings and a lack of sales meant there was insufficient income to cover debt,” the first McDonald Vague report said.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.